


Switching Places

by This-is-my-otp (Zetalial)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Bodyswap, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23081824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetalial/pseuds/This-is-my-otp
Summary: After Al sacrifices himself, Ed comes up with a way to get him back.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Switching Places

**Author's Note:**

> Again, originally posted on tumblr. This is a weird idea/concept that's currently in one-shot form. It intrigues me but I'm not quite sure where I'd want it to go so leaving it as just the idea for now. I feel like the tone is a bit all over the place but I'm not up to refining it currently.

He’s gone.

Ed wasn’t sure how long it had been since Rose had left. He’d collapsed onto the ground and couldn’t quite bring himself to move. What was the point now? Dante had disappeared, the homunculi were all defeated and Al…

Al wasn’t here anymore.

Al had sacrificed himself and left him here, alone. All those years of searching and all it had led to was this? His body was whole now but his heart felt empty.

It wasn’t fair, Al should’ve been the one to live while he-

Ed wrenched himself away from his thoughts. He didn’t have time to fall apart now, not when there was work to be done.

This abandoned theatre was perfect for a human transmutation. If there was any way at all to bring him back, surely it could be done here? He had nothing more to lose.

Ed stood up, eyeing the complex circles on the walls. The memories from the gate were still fresh in his mind after his recent trip to the other world. With this new knowledge, he began tracing a transmutation circle.

Was it possible that Al’s soul could have ended up in the other side of the gate, like their father? Perhaps there was a counterpart of Al that he had possessed.

Ed paused, an idea forming in his mind. He looked down at the partially drawn array, deep in thought. There was no guarantee that a sacrifice would work.

…

Ed has to raid Dante’s rooms and borrow some of her alchemy notes to make it happen, but the circle looked about right. He grinned weakly; knowing there was no point in hesitating.

Ed gingerly stepped into the circle.

“I’m sorry, Al,” he muttered.

He pressed his hands (two perfect flesh hands) into the array drawn on his bare chest and activated the circle.

…

Alphonse was surprised to be waking up. For the second time in his life, his soul had been untethered and drifting into whatever laid ahead. And for the second time, his soul had been wrenched back, into a new container.

Except – this container was breathing.

At this realisation, Al breathed in deeply, grateful that he could and hardly daring to believe that his brother had somehow retrieved his body after all. That meant his sacrifice had worked and Edward hadn’t died. Al had saved him in time.

Slowly Al got up off the cold floor (and he could actually feel the cold on his skin) just enjoying the sensations he’d been absent of for so long. His movements were quiet, no longer accompanied by endless clanging, and yet he could hear the light rustling sounds without echoey distortions.

How had Ed done it?

Al looked about the abandoned theatre, realising suddenly that it was quiet and he couldn’t see his brother anywhere. To gain anything, something of equal value must be lost.

The feelings of elation at being alive once more were vanishing as he examined his situation more closely. He was sitting in the very centre of a very complex array yet his mind, bursting with knowledge after his brush with the Gate, could read it with startling clarity. It was an array for human transmutation.

He looked down at his body, noting that there was an array drawn on his bare chest it what looked far too much like blood. His brother’s blood. And he realised there were smaller arrays on each of his arms too. And Ed wasn’t here. Al could connect the dots.

But it was the last detail which puzzled him: while his torso was bare, his legs were not. He recognised the article of clothing easily enough: they were Ed’s leather pants, and his boots as well. That was just strange. Why would Ed have partially dressed him in his clothes?

He found himself running his hands over himself, trying to soothe himself by enjoying these simple sensations that had been denied to him for so long. It felt good but he didn’t deserve to feel. Not at the cost of so many lives. He should have been dead a long time ago. If it weren’t for people like Scar, and Martel and Edward most of all.

He longed to yell at Ed once more for being an idiot, but Ed wasn’t here to hear him. His brother was dead.

Al blinked. His eyes felt strangely… watery. He ran his strong, beautiful new hands over his strangely soft face and into his long hair. Then he froze.

It was strange enough that his hair was so long and it had seemed rather pale as it fell into his face but that could be explained easily enough. His new body was grown up now, of course it was supposed to be a little different. But- there was no conceivable reason for his hair to be done up in a familiar braid.

Al looked over his- this body again as the details fell into place. This wasn’t his body at all. It was Edward’s.

“Brother…?” Al said, hearing the familiar tone of his brother’s voice coming out of his mouth.

…

Time seemed to blur as Al worked with newfound determination. He wasn’t going to accept this stupid sacrifice. He was going to get Ed back, just as Ed had done for him. Somewhere, Ed’s soul was floating away untethered but surely if he acted quickly enough, he could bring him back just as Ed had done for him.

There would be a cost of course, but somehow the price of a couple of limbs (that he’d only so recently retrieved from Wrath and the gate) seemed like nothing compared to his brother’s soul.

Once Al had come to this decision, he found his mind was filled with the knowledge to make it happen – and more. Somehow, he could still sense some portion of the Philosopher’s stone still attached to his soul. It would be enough. A limb to tether the soul and the remains of the stone to construct a body.

It was like making a homunculus really – the only difference was that Ed’s soul wasn’t too far from reach yet so the creation wouldn’t be soulless. It had to work. Al couldn’t live with anything else.

Although the body was new to him, moving about and drawing a circle felt like second nature. He had no idea how much time had passed before he’d refined the circle to his needs. He’d worked without stopping, not allowing himself to think of what would happen if he wasn’t fast enough. (Another homunculus? One that looked like his brother? Would it be called Sloth to replace their first attempt?)

Calling on all the power that remained within him, Al stood in front of the complicated array and clapped his (Ed’s) hands together.

-

Ed’s reawakening caught them both by surprise. When the lights of the transmutation faded, Al felt pain of the sort he’d never felt before and was distracted by the sight of so much of his blood. The gate had taken an arm and a leg once more and it was really hard to focus on anything else.

Ed awoke to the sight of what looked like himself bleeding out in front of him and didn’t bother to consider the situation beyond his absolute certainty that that was really Al and that he needed help. Fortunately, Al had prepared with some medical supplies immediately beside the transmutation circle. (Al had had been haunted by terrible visions of Ed bleeding out from their first attempt and the perilous trip to get help form their neighbours and so had thought to be more ready this time.)

Ed bandaged his brother up as best as he could, speaking both sweet and angry encouragements at him as he worked. Al was mostly out of him but in the middle of bandaging up his arm, he suddenly started laughing loudly, maniacally. It was downright unsettling.

“You- You look like- You look like me!” Al laughed.

…

It would take a month for the Elric brothers to be strong enough to make their way back to Risembool, especially in between dodging a military that was in the middle of a coup and also their reputations as war criminals, still wanted for what happened in Liore.

By that time the two of them had mostly accepted that Al had somehow managed to retrieve his own lost body for his brother so shortly after Ed had transferred Al’s soul into his own body. Thanks to their efforts, Al was going to need to get a fresh set of automail and he had cheerfully accepted such a fate.

Ed meanwhile, was getting used to being in Al’s body. Al’s distressingly young body that had not aged a day while trapped inside the gate. He was 10 years old again. He was alive though, with four functional limbs. It wasn’t the solution he had been looking for, but it was one he was content to accept.

Once Al had recovered enough, they soon found it quite ludicrous that they had each ended up in each other’s body. Enough to laugh and joke about it.

“You know, sometimes I did want to be more like you brother,” Al said, brushing his golden hair with his only working arm. “I never really expected it to happen though.”

“Hey, I just thought we needed to be a bit closer – I always missed being able to feel you when you were a suit of armour.” Ed replied. He was sitting beside his brother, a book on his lap.

“And here I thought it was just a way for you to shirk responsibility,” he said. They had agreed that it was easiest for everyone if they kept what happened a secret. As far as anyone knew Ed was still in his body and Al’s body had been recovered with no mishaps. Only the two of them would know the truth. It meant that Al would be the one to deal with Ed’s reputation as the Fullmetal Alchemist.

They were still undecided about whether to inform Winry when they went to get Al some automail. Ed was wondering if she’d notice if they didn’t tell her. If she did notice they were acting strangely, she’d probably just attribute it to Al having his body back.

“Nah, that’s just a bonus,” Ed said with a grin. They weren’t going to leave each other’s side any time soon so practically speaking they’d both deal with it anyway.

“Is it also a bonus that you’ll be seen as the younger brother for the rest of your life?”

Ed scowled. He really gotten off lightly compared to Al who was missing two limbs but the reminder of his age was still irritating.

“It’s a good thing though – I was worried about being shorter than you when I got my body back.”

Ed’s 16, almost 17-year-old body was a fair bit taller than Al’s 10 year old body.

“Oh shut up, soon I’ll be taller than you, you know?” If it were anyone else, Ed might have lost his temper – but it was Al so he could control himself.

“Yeah, you’ll have outgrown yourself. That’s why you gave me your body, right? So you wouldn’t have to suffer being short anymore?”

His brother did love to test him though. “Oi, I like the way I look. I did this so I could admire myself!”

In all seriousness, it was still downright strange to stare at himself. It was sometimes like looking in a mirror except all of the movements and expressions were completely wrong. Sometimes, when he was wearing a gentle open expression it wasn’t hard to see Al’s soul behind those golden eyes.

Without really thinking, he placed a hand on Al’s good shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. Al absolutely loved touched things and being touched and it was downright strange to see such open curiosity on his own face.

For now, Al was still grinning cheekily however. “Yeah, I was thinking of a change actually. Maybe I should cut off all this hair. It’s much too long, you know?”

His grip on Al’s shoulder tightened. “Touch my hair and you die,” Ed snapped back even knowing Al wasn’t really serious.

“You know you can’t stop me,” Al said, running his fingers through his hair again.

Ed grinned. “You know you only have one arm? And I have two? I can restrain you and still have a whole arm free.”

“My one arm’s stronger than both your ten year-old-arms put together,” Al shot back after a moment.

Ed rolled his eyes. “Now who’s insulting themselves?”


End file.
